Trying To Be Healthier

I had left this blog for ages. Reason? No reason. I just tend to be sporadic at times in my writing habit. There were times I feel like I just want to write and write, about everything and anything that I care about. Which is dangerous actually. There are times I just let ideas blow away into nothingness. People say that, in an ideal universe, everyone should be able to express his or her own opinion as long as he or she does not cause harm or injustice to others with that opinion. Frankly, even I do not believe there is such a place. An ideal universe, I mean. We do not need an ideal world. We just need to be rationale, just and peaceful.

It is better then to write about myself. Lately, I have a lot of thought about the state of affairs of my health. It started with my blood pressure reading which nowadays seemed to fluctuate towards the higher than normal reading, despite the fact that I am on medication. I take only one medication and I really hope that it will stay that way for always. Because there are people who have to be on two or three medications just for hypertension alone. Even if my reading is not that high, for example 160/85 about one and half months ago, still I feel that my body is telling me to do something about it. Hypertension is one of the many metabolic syndromes that should tell us to be careful and to take measures to prevent the situation from becoming worse. It can lead to cardivascular disease if I do not take care, despite the medication.

I want to be healthier than what I am now. My idea of aging gracefully is being able to live independently on my own, being able to do what I love. It means having a quality life without being afflicted with any chronic disease. Have I had those so far? Well, so far so good. For a 61 year-old I think I am doing ok. Besides the hypertension, and the osteoarthritis which has been partly tackled, I have no other medical conditions that need special attention.

Back to the hypertension. How do I bring my BP reading to normal? I have read a lot of literature on that topic. Hypertension is the condition when the heart has to pump harder in order to send oxygenated blood to various parts of the body. If left untreated hypertension can lead to the narrowing of the arteries carrying blood from the heart to other parts of the body. The term for the narrowing or hardening if the arteries is atherosclerosis. What causes atherosclerosis? Whenever there is an inflammation on the cells of the walls of the arteries, cholesterol will patch up that inflammation by depositing itself at the cell. It is this cholesterol deposits or plug that tend to obstruct the path of blood flow by making the path smaller. In the incidence of the cholesterol plug being run over by the particles in the blood and get broken off, more cholesterol will be deposited there to the extend that the artery is totally blocked at that point. This will result in a stroke. The latest researches on cardio-vascular diseses have ceased demonising cholesterol as the Darth Varder of strokes contrary to previous beliefs.

What causes hypertension? The exact causes of high blood pressure are not really known, but several factors and conditions may play a role in its development including:
- Smoking
- Being overweight or obese
- Lack of physical activities
- Too much salt in the diet
- Too much alcohol consumption
- Stress
- Older age
- Genetics
- Family history
- Chronic kidney disease
- Adrenal and thyroid disorders
- Sleep apnea

Okay, I know all the facts. Where do I begin to make some changes towards being healthier? That is, where hypertension in concerned. I have decided to tackle the obesity issue. Since losing weight has a lot of health benefits and is very much suggested to me by my regular GP.

As the caption in the image above says, I use this photo
to motivate and encourage myself in the process

The above selfie was taken, if I am not wrong, about 3 months after my retirement in late 2013 and just before the TKR surgery. I looked fat, too fat in fact. That is just considering the face only. I think, my weight at that time was around 71 kg. At 71 kg. my BMI was 30.33 which was already in the obese category.So, about two months ago, I decided to choose to do something about my weight. I am responsible for myself and nobody else. The choice is mine and mine alone.

The chubby Wan Nyah

In the second image above, can also be clearly seen in all the 5 facial snapshots that I needed to lose some weight. I looked just very very chubby and chubby is cute for small children only.

Managed to lose a little weight. Still making all effort.
Determined to reach a healthy BMI.

So, after about two months, I did manage to lose some weight. In the above image, the right-most section was when I was 71 kg, the middle section was about 3 weeks ago and the one on the left was about 5 days ago. Trying to lose weight is not an easy journey and there were times I am just not sure, whether I can do it. Will perhaps write about it in 2 or 3 months time.